It’s kinda scary. You feel those nerves starting to twitch days before the competition whenever you start to think about it. Come the day you start to think why am I doing this? I don’t have to do this.
But you do it. And it’s pretty intense cause the other guy is probably just as scared and is trying to throw you, choke you or get you in a shoulder or arm lock.
Here’s a video of some of the highlights from the competition.
I got 3 submissions (armbars from mount). If you get the guy to tap out by arm/shoulder lock or a choke then you win.
You can also win by points, but they are secondary to a submission. Certain positions are considered more dominate and you can get points from those like mount, back, side control.
Then you can get points from sweeps (going from bottom to top) and guard passes (getting out from between the guys legs).
I just focus on trying to get the submission as I think that is more martial art like versus a sport.
I won 3 and I lost one by points.
The guy I lost to had a wrestling background. He was pretty athletic. He won because he got 4 points for a mount position, but I got out. I had only 2 points from a hip sweep.
My friends said I was only a second away from winning. I just got my leg out but just a hair of a second too slow as the buzzer went off.
I guess losing is not really a loss. For one he didn’t submit me. So losing by points is not like losing from tapping out and avoiding a broken arm. It’s a game.
It’s still not quite as tasty as a win, but there’s something to learn from it. I saw my technique for guard passing towards the end to be pretty sloppy and there were a few things I would do differently.
It’s more intense than practice. You get tired really quickly if you are going 100%.
It’s cool to watch the matches over and over again. You can see what you did wrong and what you can do better next time.
My judo throw
I did do one judo throw called harai goshi and followed it with an armbar. You can see it in the video above at 1:36.
Face your fears
That’s why I did it. That’s what my teacher said was incentive to do it.
It’s a lot more intense than class. It’s more like a real fight with a few rules.
It’s scary, but fun.
I got nervous, but being around your friends makes it fun too. And then after our teacher took a bunch of us out to Chinese. It was a great time.